Category: Connecticut Travel

The Bruce Museum, located on One Museum Drive in Greenwich is offering a new adventure into the world of animals with their new exhibition that runs through July 3 called Wild Reading: Animals in Children’s Book Arts.
Through more than thirty contemporary and historic illustrations, the show explores the colorful lives of wild animals, both realistic and exaggerated.

Original works by artists such as Quentin Blake (illustrator of books by Roald Dahl and others), Eric Carle, Wendell Minor, Maurice Sendak and others demonstrate the wide range of styles and visual elements used in children’s literature – from color, line, and shape to texture and composition.

A highlight of this exhibition will be taxidermy specimens including a fox, groundhog, rabbit, chipmunk, squirrel, raccoon, birds, and insects from the Museum’s natural history collection, which will be paired with their illustrated counterparts. Comparisons drawn between the illustrations and specimens address the characteristics that make each animal unique and the artistic techniques used to emphasize these features.

For example, a mounted gray wolf will be matched with John Hassall’s original 1926 drawing of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf from Mother Goose’s Book of Nursery Stories, Rhymes and Fables, while the Museum’s black bear associates with.Fred Banbery’s Paddington Bear and more naturalistic illustrations by Jeannie Brett and Carin Berger.

An accompanying family gallery guide and family day will foster exciting cross-generational experiences for Museum visitors of all ages. The museum is open daily Tues. – Sun. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. For more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Western Connecticut State University will celebrate its popular spring tradition in bringing the world’s leading jazz artists to perform in Danbury as it presents the 21st annual WCSU Jazz Fest from March 31 through April 2 featuring the legendary saxophonists and composers Joe Lovano and Kenny Garrett.

This year’s Jazz Fest, presented by the WCSU Department of Music with support from the Student Government Association, will showcase the virtuoso performances and visionary original compositions of two artists widely recognized to be among the most influential and sought-after jazz saxophonists during the past three decades.

Lovano, a tenor saxophonist and bandleader who has recorded two dozen albums on the Blue Note label since 1990, will perform with the WCSU
Jazz Orchestra at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 1. Garrett, an alto saxophonist who began his career performing with leading jazz musicians of the 20th century and has established his own distinctive sound in recordings as a bandleader and composer over the past two decades, will appear with the Kenny Garrett Quintet at 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 2.

Both performances will be in the Veronica Hagman Concert Hall of the Visual and Performing Arts Center on the WCSU Westside campus, 43 Lake Ave. Extension in Danbury. General admission prices will be $15 for the Friday concert and $20 for the Saturday concert; admission will be free for WCSU students with valid ID. The WCSU jazz music faculty and students will perform ensemble sets featuring jazz classics and original works in the opening Jazz Fest concert at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 31, in the Veronica Hagman Concert Hall. Admission will be $10, or free for WCSU students with ID. Reservations for all concerts are available at www.wcsuvpac.eventbrite.com.

A native of Cleveland who began playing saxophone as a teen at jazz clubs with his father, Lovano developed his appreciation for modal harmony in performance during his studies at Berklee College of Music and his continuing work on the Boston jazz club circuit. His emerging reputation as a jazz saxophonist received a major boost with his call in 1976 to join the all-star group assembled by bandleader Woody Herman for a three-year gig touring the United States and Europe and playing at prestigious international jazz festivals.

Lovano’s career as a bandleader and composer blossomed in the 1980s and 1990s as he settled into the vibrant New York jazz scene, entering musical collaborations with the Mel Lewis Orchestra at the Village Vanguard and many of the jazz world’s elite musicians including Bob Brookmeyer, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian, John Scofield. Gunther Schuller, Herbie Hancock, Carla Bley and McCoy Tyner. Bruce Lundvall of Blue Note Records, which signed Lovano to a recording contract in 1991, said that when he first heard the saxophonist in performance, “I felt that he was the most creative and hard-swinging tenor player I’d heard in years. Joe has emerged as a giant on his instrument and a full-fledged giant of jazz.”

Lovano credits his musical and life partnership with jazz vocalist and composer Judi Silvano as an inspiration for his continuing exploration of new ways to blend vocals, woodwinds, brass and percussion in his compositions. The biographical notes on his website observed that Lovano constantly experiments with new ensembles and formats in recordings and concerts, following “his lifelong regime of practicing, jamming and trying new sounds. The secret to his success is his fearless ability to challenge and push the conceptual and thematic choices he makes in a quest for new modes of artistic expression, further defining the jazz idiom.”

Garrett receives equally wide acclaim for his contributions to the contemporary jazz scene as both a preeminent artist on the alto saxophone and a bandleader who continuously explores diverse international musical genres for inspiration and new stylings in sound and rhythm that have found unique expression in his boldly innovative compositions.

“When I was in high school and college, delving into jazz music during the 1990s, I found that Kenny was one of the most widely emulated saxophonists among my peers — and for good reason. He has without doubt one of the most personal, distinctive and beautiful alto saxophone sounds ever,” Greene remarked. He recalled that he and Garrett shared a common mentor in the legendary jazz artist and educator Jackie McLean, who taught Greene during his studies at the Hartt School of the University of Hartford. “When I asked Jackie to name his favorite younger sax players at the time,” he said, “one of the two performers he mentioned was Kenny Garrett.”

A Detroit native who landed his first major gig with the Duke Ellington Orchestra led by Mercer Ellington, Garrett’s musical development came in the company of jazz giants including Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and Miles Davis. His many album and performance collaborations have included the Grammy Award-winning Five Peace Band with guitarist John McLaughlin, pianist Chick Corea, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, and the Freedom Band with Corea, McBride and drummer Roy Haynes.
His own success as a composer and bandleader since the 1990s has been capped by two Grammy Award nominations for his 2012 album “Seeds from the Underground” and a third nomination for his 2013 release “Pushing the World Away,” as well as his 2012 selection to receive the Echo Award as Saxophonist of the Year. Cover notes for “Seeds from the Underground” said that his original compositions for that album paid “homage to those who have inspired and influenced him, both personally and musically. Garrett has crafted a project that offers his appreciation while always making the listener aware of his band’s skillful approach to melody, harmony and rhythm. Like all successful bandleaders, Garrett knows what he wants musically and has formed a band that will best communicate his message.”

Garrett draws extensively upon his familiarity with world music genres to broaden and push the envelope of jazz composition. “I love the challenge of trying to stay open about music and about life,” he said in the “Seeds” album notes. As a composer, “I don’t try to control what I write. Music comes from the Creator. It’s a gift that’s coming in, and I receive it. I write in all genres, and I’m writing all the time. It’s never about what it is — I just say, ‘Thank you.'”

Ticket reservations are available online for Jazz Fest concerts on March 31 at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/21st-annual-jazz-festival-featuring-wcsu-jazz-faculty-tickets-21493821599; April 1 at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/21st-annual-jazz-fest-featuring-joe-lovano-with-the-wcsu-jazz-orchestra-tickets-22223664579; and April 2 at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/21st-annual-jazz-fest-featuring-the-kenny-garrett-quintet-tickets-22224057755.

For more area information www.visitwesternct.com

The Fairfield Museum and History Center located on 370 Beach Street has opened a new exhibition that will be on display through May 1, Look at Me! Recording and Sharing Our Selves. This evocative exhibition takes a look at “selfie” trend that has taken the social media world by storm. Today’s “selfie” phenomenon offers the opportunity to reflect on the history of how people have shared images of themselves.

This thought provoking exhibition questions the function and use of a painted portrait, a photograph and daguerreotype, and examines how does it differs from a “selfie” taken on a cell phone. Through this display, by examining paintings, silhouettes, early photographs, and miniatures of individuals from the Fairfield region, this exhibition considers how we have pictured ourselves over time.

On February 25 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. the museum will host an “after dark program”, “Expressions of Identity and the Selfie”. Participants will enjoy a mini portrait-sketching workshop with Suzanne Chamlin-Richer, Associate Professor of Visual & Performing Arts of Fairfield University. Event goers will also join other guests to discuss the history of art and photography, from 18th century portraiture to the saturation of selfie images on social media today. Guests are invited to share their thoughts on this talk about the push and pull between popular culture, narcissism and social change and how people express their views through self-representation. Museum Members: Free; Non-Members: $5.

For more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

Calling all children on Saturday, March 26 from 10 a.m. to noon to go on a Heckscher Farm Egg Hunt, at the Stamford Nature Center and Museum. Children ages six and younger can bring their own baskets and search for hundreds of eggs that will be hidden all over Heckscher Farm. Eggs will be distributed throughout the two-hour event.

Once eggs have been collected, they can be turned in for a goody bag. Parents and older siblings are welcome to come along in support. The gates of the farm will open at 10 am. Please note only one goody bag will be provided for each child ages six and younger.

After you have hunted for your eggs on Heckscher Farm, stop in and visit Heckscher WILD! and the Overbrook Nature Center to celebrate animals that lay eggs from 10 am to 12:30 pm.

Kids will discover the special eggs of salamanders, why bird eggs come in different shapes and colors, and meet some of the Centers egg-laying snakes. There will be plenty of activities at the center as well including ongoing self-guided crafts in Overbrook, and live animal visits in Heckscher WILD!, A highlight of the day happens at noon when kids are invited to join staff for a live “Egg-laying Animals” class in Overbrook. Participants will meet a chicken, snake, and other live animals.

The cost for this event is $5 per family for members and $5 plus gate admission for non-members. For more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com

As part of the annual Julia Q. Keggi Lecture Series, which honors the legacy of women artists, the Mattatuck Museum located in Waterbury is pleased to host art historian and author Jay E. Cantor for a presentation about American Impressionist Mary Cassatt (1844–1926). Titled “A Thoroughly Modern Mary,” this presentation will explore the artistic journey of Mary Stevenson Cassatt, an American printmaker and painter who is widely known for her intimate depictions of mothers and children. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, March 23 at 11:00 a.m. and is $10 for Members and $12 for Non-Members.

Cantor is an independent fine art appraiser and a former vice-president with Christie’s Appraisals, Inc. in New York. He also directed the Mary Cassatt catalogue raisonné committee between 1989 and 2006. Cantor has authored numerous articles and essays about the history of American and French Impressionism, including “Renoir and Vollard: A Comfortable Intimacy,” Vollard is a Genius in His Line,” and “Mary Cassatt, Drawing on Drawing.” Cantor earned his B.A. in the History of Art from Cornell University and his M.A. from the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture from the University of Delaware.

For more information on all of the museum’s programs, events, and exhibits visit the website at www.mattatuckmuseum.org or call (203) 753-0381. For more area information on the Litchfield Hills www.litchfieldhills.com

Celebrate April Fool’s night from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Fairfield Museum for an evening of family fun, featuring wacky entertainment, crafts, kid-friendly cuisine and plenty of fun! Get an exclusive sneak preview of the newest exhibition, “Fabulous Animals: The Illustrated World of Robert Lawson.” His work includes illustrations for The Story of Ferdinand, Rabbit Hill and Mr. Popper’s Penguins.

The night will include a wandering magician who will delight families with amazing illusions, mesmerizing tricks, balloon animals and jokes, of course! Create your own wacky crafts and listen to foolish stories about animals! Pick a joke from our mixed bag, perform some stand-up comedy and make people laugh with our Joke Telling Open Mic. End the evening with a tasty treat from Shake Shack’s specialty custard booth!

Adults: $15; Children: $10; Family of Four: $40. Space is limited! Reserve your tickets online here by March 28
or call the Museum, 203-259-1598 For more area information www.visitfairfieldcountyct.com